Due West, multi-instrumentalist Althea SullyCole’s debut album, was released on July 11th, 2025, on Chaco World Music. The album is the culmination of Althea’s fourteen years studying the kora, a twenty-one stringed harp from the Mandé region of West Africa (encompassing present-day Mali, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, and the Gambia). The tracks that constitute Due West are songs that Althea has collected travelling across three continents (Africa, Europe and North America) with the instrument. From “Alalake,” a song at the heart of the kora tradition, to original meditation “Middle Passage,” the album traces routes across the Black Atlantic in modes, rhythms and collaborations that are the reflection of Althea’s unique imagination as a kora player. In addition to the kora, the album features steel pan, marimba, guitar, flute, bass, saxophone and various percussion performed by Jeffrey A. Jones, Ras Moshe Burnett, Alec Saelens, Rossyl Esdras Boussamba Linguissi, and Lanier Sammons.

Due West was also produced by Lanier Sammons at California State University, Monterey Bay. It was mastered by Maria Triana. Album cover photo was taken by Jean-Baptiste Joire. Album cover design is by Hallie Bean. Special thanks to Drew Lassen, Celine Lee, Kevin Grether, Ryan Recta and Tristan Gianelli for sound engineering assistance at California State University, Monterey Bay; and to Nathanael Shepherd Jake Prigmore, Kyle Dempsey, and Maximilian Churchill for sound engineering assistance at University of Massachusetts Lowell.